CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic media group recently filed an amicus brief in a case concerning chemical abortion pills that is currently before the Supreme Court, criticizing the FDA putting “women’s lives in grave danger” by approving harmful abortion drugs like mifepristone.
The Catholic Association and Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, M.D., a senior fellow at the Association, filed the amicus brief on February 29 in the current abortion pill case, U.S Food & Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The Alliance is challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone in 2000.
Christie said that ectopic pregnancies and other life-threatening conditions are associated with mifepristone, calling it a “high-risk drug.”
“But the abortion drug mifepristone is now being recklessly distributed without any in person medical consultation and even through the mail, posing severe health threats to women,” she said in a press release from The Catholic Association.
In the brief, Christie and the Association stated that the health risks of taking mifepristone are easily avoided “when a physician uses an ultrasound to date a woman’s pregnancy and determine the location of the embryo or fetus.”
“By eliminating the requirement of an in-person visit before dispensing mifepristone, the FDA has ensured that many women will not receive a diagnostic ultrasound and will not know the accurate date of their pregnancy or the location of their embryo or fetus before taking mifepristone,” the brief reads. “Eliminating this safeguard causes women to suffer needlessly and even face death.”
The brief also points out that “The FDA’s own label for mifepristone admits that the drug will result in emergency room care for roughly one in 25 women who take it.”
In the press release, Christie argued that the FDA needs to reinstate protections for women in regards to chemical abortion pills, but added that “Instead, the FDA has turned the world of chemical abortions into a wild, wild west where women can order them online or at their local CVS, with no medical consultation, and no follow up for hazardous complications.”
She continued:
The FDA has also trampled the conscience rights of medical professionals who are being regularly conscripted into completing abortions for women who predictably suffer the many avoidable complications after taking these drugs. Catholic hospitals and countless Catholic healthcare workers provide healthcare to millions of Americans, especially low-income Americans. They and other medical professionals who object to abortion because of their faith deserve to know that they will not be forced to violate their conscience as they work to serve America’s sick.
The Catholic Association’s brief comes shortly after pro-life organization Students for Life filed an amicus brief in the same case, calling for the Supreme Court to recognize the effects of mifepristone and chemical abortion pills on the environment.
